Eingya

Keith Kenniff's third album of hazy ambience (and second as Helios) balances
washed-out electronic processing with clear guitar melodies and delicate piano.

Since Helios' Eingya is the third full-length by Boston-based
composer Keith Kenniff, and the second from the same alias (Corduroy Road
was released under the name Goldmund), you can't accuse him of not being
serious about his work. Nor can you call him a dilettante or moonlighter: He's
a Berklee College of Music grad who's served time since childhood in music
lessons administered by a musically-inclined father (instead of playing outside
or whatever), and his accomplishment and expertise on various instruments is
gratifyingly apparent on all three of his releases.

But though Boards of Canada-jonesing listeners hailed Eingya when it
was released last year as the ambient classic they'd gone however many years
without, a cursory listen to the record showed that Kenniff at least thought
he had a story to tell beyond the texture of his sound. Press materials alluded
to European travel and a fascination with cinema to explain the record's
narrative arcs, which was giving either too much credit or not nearly enough,
depending on how much you liked what he ended up with.

When I first listened to Eingya it was mostly to
"Vargtimme", a grindingly borderless, AM-station bit of noise that
updated Eno and partnered well with NYC-drone duo Growing, who often work in
the same just one sound vicinity. This was the lone spot on the album
that didn't try to move me along to the next, which I appreciated. And I dodged
the rest of the album-- save a few tracks incorporating field recordings of
birds chirping and the like-- because it felt pushy: Upswells, dramatic builds,
and arcs so familiar as to be meaningless, or worse, were all I could hear once I
caught the trick.

Returning to the record, other things caught my ear. I wondered
at the formally traditional guitar sound of the latter half of "The Toy
Garden", an elegant and composed break from the song's otherwise heavy
synthetic texture; the hollowed-out flute sounds that begin "First Dream
Called Ocean"; and the bell-toned riffs that carry "Paper Tiger"
into its flat bass-toned denouement. In any one of these sounds I could have
remained.

Kenniff is trained as a percussionist, which might explain Eingya's
forward-motion embrace, or we may have to give credit to the abhorrent
"taking in influence from his knowledge of cinema" touted as a virtue
in his press materials. My guess is the answer lies somewhere in between: Kenniff
fits his movements to moods and classic shapes because it never occurred to him
not to do so. And why not? Already he's in the business of making
close-listening materials for an audience that likely hears his stuff via MP3s
over computer speakers; spinning his music as more than just sound might be an
unconscious survival mechanism.

Likely there's no fault here at all, except with this reviewer. My wishes
for bedroom laptop music often seem opposed to those of its creators. I wish
they'd worry more at their own subjectivity. Instead, I feel as though they
impinge on mine.